Tag: Spiritual Warfare

The Slaying of Rahab the Sea Dragon (Psalm 89)

O LORD God of hosts, 
     who is mighty as you are, O LORD, 
     with your faithfulness all around you? 
You rule the raging of the sea; 
     when its waves rise, you still them. 
You crushed Rahab like a carcass; 
     you scattered your enemies with your mighty arm. 
The heavens are yours; the earth also is yours; 
     the world and all that is in it, you have founded them.

—Psalm 89:8–11

The steadfast love and faithfulness of God’s covenant is sure to endure forever because the might of God lies behind it. That might is spoken of here using the most striking of metaphors. In order to grasp it, it may be helpful to take an inventory of all the elements laid before us. We have sea, heaven, and earth, that is, we have creation as a noun. We also have creation as a verb, as an act. And then there is the might of God and the defeat of his enemies. But most uniquely, we have Rahab. The might of God that lies behind his forever steadfast love is that which crushes Rahab. Surely this doesn’t mean crushing a Canaanite woman. What is Rahab here?

Awake, awake, put on strength, 
     O arm of the LORD; 
awake, as in days of old,
     the generations of long ago. 
Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, 
     who pierced the dragon? 
Was it not you who dried up the sea, 
     the waters of the great deep, 
who made the depths of the sea a way 
     for the redeemed to pass over?” 

—Isaiah 51:9–10; emphasis mine
“The pillars of heaven tremble 
     and are astounded at his rebuke. 
By his power he stilled the sea; 
     by his understanding he shattered Rahab. 
By his wind the heavens were made fair; 
     his hand pierced the fleeing serpent” 

—Job 26:11–13; emphasis mine

This is very similar to the language used of Leviathan in Psalm 74.

“You divided the sea by your might; 
     you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters. 
You crushed the heads of Leviathan; 
     you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness. 
You split open springs and brooks; 
     you dried up ever-flowing streams. 
Yours is the day, yours also the night; 
     you have established the heavenly lights and the sun. 
You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth; 
     you have made summer and winter”

—Psalm 74:13–17

Piecing our clues together, it appears as though Rahab is a sea dragon, as in the Mesopotamian myths; a creature associated with chaos. For example, Marduk is said to have defeated the primordial sea goddess Tiamat and to have made heaven and earth from the rent carcass. Thus it is that some accuse the Bible of appropriating pagan mythology at this point.

But earlier in Isaiah we read this, “Egypt’s help is worthless and empty; therefore I have called her ‘Rahab who sits still’” (Isaiah 30:7; emphasis mine). Rahab is also clearly a nation in Psalm 87:4.

What are we to make of this? Back up. Take in the big story. When God delivered His people from Egypt in covenant faithfulness he did so with signs and wonders, with a mighty arm judging not only Egypt, but her gods (Exodus 12:12). Egypt is likened to a sea monster of chaos and by defeating her, by crushing the serpent’s head, a people are formed and brought into a land of milk and honey.

Listen to Isaiah 59 again: “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon? Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over?” (emphasis mine). At the Red Sea, Rahab was slain. The serpent crushed. The people of God delivered. The chaos stilled.

And here, all this is being reflected on in reference not to God’s covenant faithfulness to Moses, but to David. And of the King the psalmist will soon say, “I will set his hand on the sea and his right hand on the rivers” (89:25). Here is anticipated the serpent-crushing Seed of the woman who calms the chaos of the seas cursed with the serpent. One cannot but think of the Anointed One, the Christ, who after rebuking the tempest on the sea of Galilee then rebuked the Gaderene demoniacs so that the demons went into the pigs who then rushed down a steep bank and into the sea and drowned (Matthew 8).

Behold the Christ, the Son of David whose hand is on the seas and whose foot is on the serpent’s head. At the cross, when it seemed the King was forsaken, it was then that God’s steadfast love and faithfulness were most manifest as it was there, that the pierced foot crushed the dragon’s head.

The Doctor: Be Strong in the Lord—An Illustration

“Go back to the Old Testament. We find Moses leading those grumbling, recalcitrant children of Israel. They come to him one day and say: ‘There is no water here; have you brought us out of Egypt in order that we may die of thirst here in the wilderness? There is no water; everything is as dry as a bone; what can we do?’ And God told Moses to strike a rock, informing him that when he did so water would come pouring out of it. Now there lies the predicament. Moses was a man, and though he was a very good man he knows that if he strikes rocks nothing will happen. He may have struck many a rock but no water had come gushing out. But here he is told that if he strikes a certain rock with his rod water will come gushing out of it. That constitutes the whole predicament of faith. That is exactly the position of all of us as we stand face to face with the command: ‘Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might’. ‘But who am I?’ you say. ‘I am just a weakling. What is the use of telling me to be strong?’ The answer is this. Moses in faith took his rod and he smote, he struck, the rock; and out of it came the water gushing forth. It was not Moses’ power, but it was his arm and it was his rod. Moses did not just stand by and see the water gushing out. Moses had to lift up his arm and he had to strike, to smite, that rock. But as he did so the power was given to him, and the water came gushing out of the rock. There you see the two elements in this matter. You see the activity of the man, but you see that the power is given to him by God. It was not Moses—Moses lacked the power to do such things. But Moses was given the power to do them. The two things come together. But the point I am emphasizing now is that Moses, if he had hesitated there, and had done nothing, would not have seen this marvellous miracle; but by acting he discovered that the power was given. He ‘tasted’ and he ‘saw’! That is the way in which it happens.” D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Christian Soldier

Rest? Stop!

rest-area-we-approve-1225977-1280x960.jpg“This life is full of trials, full of troubles, and full of changes. Sin within, and Satan and the world without, will keep a Christian from rest, till he comes to rest in the bosom of Christ. The life of a Christian is a race and what rest have they that are still a-running their race? The life of a Christian is a warfare; and what rest have they that are still engaged in a constant warfare? The life of a Christian is the life of a pilgrim; and what rest has
a pilgrim who is still a-travelling from place to place? A pilgrim is like Noah’s dove, that could find no rest for the sole of her foot. The feast, the snare, the cares, the changes, etc., that attends believers in this world, are such that keep them from taking up their rest here. A Christian hears that word always sounding in his ears, ‘Arise, for this is not they resting-place,’ Micah 2:10. A man may as well expect to find heaven in hell, as to expect to find rest in this world.” —Thomas Brooks, A String of Pearls

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Smelling Roses in a Mine Field (Psalm 26)

Vindicate me, O LORD,
for I have walked in my integrity,
and I have trusted in the LORD without wavering.

O LORD, I love the habitation of your house
and the place where your glory dwells. —Psalm 26:1, 8

Modern worship choruses have picked up on “How lovely is your dwelling place,” but I don’t hear anyone singing “Vindicate me for I have walked in my integrity.” Our beef with this psalm is our beef with the psalter, and it goes all the way back to the beginning.

Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
for the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish. —Psalm 1

The first thing to settle as you come to the psalms is that there are righteous men as well as wicked men. True, all righteous men once were wicked men. Those who are now trees were once chaff and the change has happened by the monergistic, merciful, and mighty act of regeneration. The saints are not self-righteous, nor are they yet perfect, but they are righteous. They not only have the righteousness of Christ imputed to them, but are being continually conformed to Christ’s righteousness. There is light, and there is darkness.

This division, and the resulting war, goes all the way back to the promise of the gospel concerning the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent and the enmity between them; which was soon vividly manifest in wicked Cain murdering righteous Abel (Matthew 23:35). We open the Psalms expecting them to smell like a floral shop. Instead, they smell like a battlefield. The line has been drawn in the sand and you are either on one side or the other.

Too many professing Christians are trying to play Switzerland. We’re scared to offend God, but we still desire to trade with the world. There can be no neutrality. Do you want righteousness to win and wickedness to fail? If so, then here you may learn how to pray. If not, you’re smelling roses in the middle of a mine field and will soon find that your naiveté doesn’t neutralize the threat.

A Drink from Brooks: Painting Sin with Virtues Colors

“First, consider, That sin is never a, whit the less filthy, vile, and abominable, by its being coloured and painted with virtues colours. A poisonous pill is never a whit the less poisonous because it is gilded over with gold; nor a wolf is never a whit the less a wolf because he hath put on a sheep’s skin; nor the devil is never a whit the less a devil because he appears sometimes like an angel of light. So neither is sin any whit the less filthy and abominable by its being painted over with virtue’s colours.” —Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies against Satan’s Devices

A Drink from Brooks: Sin Is but a Bitter Sweet

The second remedy to consider, That sin is but a bitter sweet. That seeming sweet that is in sin will quickly vanish, and lasting shame, sorrow, horror, and terror will come in the room thereof: Job 20:12-14, ‘Though wickedness be sweet in his mouth, though he hide it under his tongue, though he spare it, and forsake it not, but keep it still within his mouth, yet his meat in his bowels is turned, it is the gall of asps within him.’ Forbidden profits and pleasures are most pleasing to vain men, who count madness mirth, &c. Many long to be meddling with the murdering morsels of sin, which nourish not, but rent and consume the belly, the soul, that receives them. Many eat that on earth that they digest in hell. Sin’s murdering morsels will deceive those that devour them. Adam’s apple was a bitter sweet; Esau’s mess was a bitter sweet; the Israelite’s quails a bitter sweet; Jonathan’s honey a bitter sweet; and Adonijah’s dainties a bitter sweet. After the meal is ended, then comes the reckoning. Men must not think to dance and dine with the devil, and then to sup with Abraham, Issac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; to feed upon the poison of asps, and yet that the vipers tongue should not slay them. —Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies against Satan’s Devices

Watching Sitcoms in the Midst of a Battle (1 Peter 4:1–6)

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“Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin…” —1 Peter 4:1 (ESV)

“Arm yourselves!” The word has as clear a military connotation in the original language as the English translation suggests. The noun form of the word translated “arm” is often rendered “weapons.” This is a call to weaponize.

With what are we to arm ourselves? “The same way of thinking.” It would be progress for much of the evangelical church to arm herself with any kind of thinking. Mark Noll has lamented, “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.” As you sit in the average American church, is the mood predominantly one of amusement or muse-ment? Here’s a test, if you lose electricity, does the worship gathering fall flat? Often a lot of thought goes into such gatherings, but are they thinking about thinking? If their thinking has any links to the academy, it is likely to the one in Hollywood.

We mustn’t pit the mind against the heart, but when the heart is mindlessly moved we have a word for this—manipulation. Collectively, the Christian masses aren’t so much moved by the Spirit as they are manipulated by men. What we want is for the heart to be moved by the mind. If this isn’t so, then our hearts are affected by our own imaginations rather than God’s revelation and we’re found to be worshipping an idol. Ours should be the ambition of Jonathan Edwards, “I should think myself in the way of my duty to raise the affections of my hearers as high as possibly I can, provided they are affected with nothing but truth, and with affections that are not disagreeable to the nature of what they are affected with.”

If we are far from arming ourselves with thinking, how much more so from arming ourselves with a kind of militant thinking that is ready to suffer? We are at leisure in the living room of the world rather than at the ready in God’s armory. If the Christian mind isn’t fighting, it’s surrendered. If our minds are not sober, they’re drunk (1 Peter 1:13–14).

A Spiritual War with Human Meat Shields (Psalm 17)

There is an emphasis by some on spiritual warfare today, but most of it should be tossed into the looney bin. Many would have us flailing our spiritual fists wildly in the air praying against territorial demons and rebuking the evil spirits in hurricanes.

There is another contingency that thinks we’ll win by niceness. Love can be a potent weapon in war, but niceness is a limp-wristed way of handling a Scottish claymore that’ll result in hurting more friendlies than enemies. Love will make a man throw his body over razor wire so his platoon can escape enemy fire. Niceness will politely hold the wires apart for your allies while signaling the enemy, “We’re over here. Please come to our side.”

Then there are the Westboro militants. You get the impression that the only thing that keeps them from using Satan’s more gruesome weapons is the law of land. They say they’re building God’s kingdom, but they’re using the devil’s tools.

We are in a spiritual war that uses human meat shields. The meat shield shouldn’t keep one from using the imprecatory psalms. They enlisted for their own agenda. The psalms are not a dead language meant primarily for reflective reading and not for active singing.

How aware are we of this war? I think the pathetic nature of our strategies and tactics display that we don’t get it. While some are off playing Dungeons and Dragons in a virtual world, others think we’re in a Nerf gun fight with friends. There are real evils in this world, human and demonic. We must take refuge in God and we must call in heavenly artillery.

Jesus is a King and He is an opposed King. If you think Uncle Sam can draw a line down the middle of the back seat so that we kids play nice and get along, you’re as naive as a five year old. The agenda of the enemy isn’t to maintain space, but to advance space. Jesus said we’re sent out as sheep among wolves. We have all the tactical brilliance of thinking we are sheep among cows. Sure, they’re big and they may hurt us, but we can coexist, grazing peacefully in the same pastures.

Our fundamental confession is “Jesus is Lord.” All the pastures are His. That’s His grass. Repent and bow the knee to Christ as Lord. Persist in your hatred of Him and His bride, and know there is a judgment. 

Let us love our enemies, but let us also sing and lament all rebellion against our King, certain of His glorious judgment to bring us into the fullness of salvation and peace.

Silly Spirituality (Colossians 2:18–23)

“Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.

…These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.” —Colossians 2:18–19, 23

False teachings, like the teachers themselves, travel as a pack of dogs. Where you find one, the others are likely present. Do you sense an unbiblical esteem for the spiritual and disdain for the physical that leans toward asceticism? If so, you’ll likely find an unhealthy fascination with angels and demons. Is spiritual warfare concerning said angels and demons made much of in an extra-biblical way? Then there will likely be talk of visions to justify such nonsense.

The irony of this false teaching is that their qualifications disqualify. Their severity to the body strengthens the flesh. Their show of humility is fuels pride. Worshipping angels, they’re enslaved to demons. Seeking higher spiritual knowledge, their minds are fleshly and of this world. By starving the body they’ve only fed the flesh.

Paul is ridiculing these false teachers in the light of the gory of Christ. They are a joke, but not one to be taken flippantly or casually. Laugh at heresy with the utmost seriousness. Let no one disqualify you insisting on something so stupid and silly. See Jesus Christ the Lord, supreme as Sovereign, Savior, and Sanctifier.

Don’t Buy “Dragon Slayer” (Colossians 2:8–15)

“See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.” —Colossians 2:8 (ESV)

False teaching promises freedom and enslaves. It promises life and give death. Heresy is a lie dressed up as truth. She promises fullness, but she’s a vacuum. She’s a harlot; she’s not lady wisdom.

The worst kind of captivity is the one you’re blind to and embrace as freedom. Man rebels against God desiring to be free and finds bondage to sin, Satan, and death. But more subtle, more crafty, is the illusion of freedom, deeper spirituality, and fullness that looks like it’s fighting for God’s kingdom against the forces of darkness.

The false teachers trying to make inroads at Colossae had a fascination with angels and spiritual forces (Colossians 2:8, 18, 20). This is why Paul has stressed that Christ is supreme over all thrones, dominions, and authorities, including those that are unseen (Colossians 1:13, 16; 2:15). Much false teaching today enslaves by promising liberation from the demonic. Demonism doesn’t always look like a goat; often it disguises itself as a lamb.

Jennifer LeClaire, writing for Charisma Magazine, tells of a friend who had a “vision” (see Colossians 2:18) wherein a squid was perched atop her head. She writes, “I knew enough about the unseen world to understand a spiritual attack was underway [emphssis added].” As you study Colossians, it becomes apparent that the false teachers were promising some kind of fullness of knowledge that was in addition to the authoritative and final apostolic revelation of Christ. LeClair is claiming exactly that kind of knowledge. What kind of spiritual attack was afoot?

“What I didn’t know was that a sneaky squid spirit would soon start stalking me.

Right about now, you might be scratching your head and asking, with all sincerity—or with all mockery—‘What in the world is a squid spirit?’ Essentially, it’s a spirit of mind control but its affects go way behind what you would think.

In his classic book, Demon Hit List, Eckhardt lists mind control and defines it this way: ‘Octopus and squid spirits having tentacles; confusion, mental pressure, mental pain, migraine.’ ”

Balderdash! LeClair then elaborates on how one falls prey to a sneaky squid spirit. Additionally, she provides intel concerning their tactics and how to combat them. The problem with all this? None of it is “according to Christ,” the Christ who has conquered (Colossians 2:15), the Christ we’ve received (Colossians 2:6). The problem with such teaching is that it says Jesus isn’t sufficient when He is the only One who is. Our eyes are diverted from the revelation of Christ as given in the Scriptures, to that which is “of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh (Colossians 2:23).” We thus come into bondage, having traded the armor of Jesus Christ for a shiny and flashy display piece dubbed “dragon slayer” that is useless, save to draw glory to ourselves.